Common features apart, each company strives to provide that `special' touch.

Here's what the different players have to say:

Growing on feedback

R. Ramkumar, Director, Corporate Marketing and Communications, Cognizant, prefers to call the intranet an "enterprise information portal." Cognizantonline has been up for about seven years now.

Ramkumar lists some benchmarks to measure a site's efficacy:

Employee feedback on the currency of information, comprehensiveness of reach, and how far information meets their everyday needs, has helped mould the site.

Such feedback has led to new features being incorporated, for instance, an auction corner where details on consumer durables, or even accommodation, can be posted.

Another feature born of employee feedback is the `Idea generation system' wherein anybody with a brilliant idea, but no wherewithal, can post it, for execution by others.

The intranet site can help build the company brand. When Cognizant's President and CEO, Lakshmi Narayanan, presided over the opening bell at Nasdaq to celebrate Cognizant's addition to the Nasdaq-100 index, the site carried the photos and details so employees could get a first-hand feel of an historic moment.

Conizantonline has helped shape the HR function and update the HR handbook. All policy handbooks are available online, says Ramkumar.

Only content and availability can drive use, which must be pulled, not pushed, he stresses.

Also, the site must function with transparency, at every level.

Did Cognizant do any data-mining? Yes. In fact, it used a tool developed in-house to mine intelligence on usage patterns.

1. Which sections are looked up most by employees?

2. How long do they stay on them?

3. How many documents are downloaded?

Information on the corporate section that helps employees keep abreast of events in the company and the industry is most frequently viewed.

Employee services, such as personal tax computation, salary updates, skill set updates, travel request, visa formalities, software and hardware request, 24x7 global help desk service, etc, are also widely viewed.

Various other features, such as Opinion Poll, Discussion Forum and PeopleFinder, facilitate interactive participation. There's even a section on the latest patches and virus updates.

Most importantly, when an employee gets a pat from a customer for a job well done, the news is flashed instantly on the site.

Take even a question like `which newspaper to advertise in?' thrown up for discussion on the intranet. It opens the floor to a flood of suggestions and counter-suggestions.

While going by the figures of circulation of a newspaper, and demographic factors, Cognizant heeds the employee survey too.

If Kaun Banega Crorepati can go by the audience response, why can't we? asks Ramkumar smilingly.

Built to last

When clients approach Satyam Computer Services Ltd to build intranet sites and portals, Satyam advocates and implements principles of Usability, User-centric design and Information Architecture, besides technology framework.

When it was Satyam's own turn to build an intranet for its consulting and enterprise solutions team, another important aspect was looked into: "why do intranet sites fail?"

This was the point, from which Vijay Tadepalli, who works in the Consulting and Enterprise Solutions unit of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, began his quest.

His team studied Web sites/intranet sites that failed and asked itself these questions:

1. Who are the end users of an intranet in a company?

2. What are their growing needs?

3. How can technology be leveraged for easy administration of the intranet site to keep it fresh, relevant and user-friendly?

4. What are the usability principles that must be applied to ensure that the site can interface with the ever-changing world of mobile, wireless and other hand-held devices?

The team gave the intranet building effort the same focus that it gives to the external client.

The fact that these particular customers play consultant to global players made the business case as challenging if not more.

The core team worked out a scenario on these lines, and tailored delivery accordingly:

Both, essential learning and single sign-on access to applications such as timesheet management, as also the factors that build the user communities that keep them logged on, feature in the intranet.

Identifying and building killer applications plays a critical role in helping users relate to, and identify with the intranet.

But not all the tools of technology can bind humans without their inclination. So, to put heart and soul into the experience, the team put people first.

Beyond access to essential information for the global employee, the site also focuses on opportunities to give and receive appreciation. "Hey guys, that's smart work," you message colleagues through the intranet after reading up on a recent project for a client that won kudos.

More such reports, more such sharing, and the site moves from an information-oriented one to a knowledge-sharing platform.

In a community that binds the associates, it is not news alone that is shared — what happened where — but knowledge — how something sticky was handled smoothly using a particular approach/tool - an important step toward tacit knowledge sharing.

Intranet use must be voluntary, stresses Tadepalli. Give a user what he can't do without, and that's the pull. Here are some other dos:

Users must know who has the last word on an issue.

In an IT company, the technical architecture of an intranet elicits as much interest as the user interface, he says.

There are ongoing efforts to study the benefits of various technology combinations through a Center of Excellence approach: Various portal, content management, application server, database and operating system technology combinations, including open source, have been tried out to compare performance of the intranet site.

In the long run, an effective and usable intranet site needs buy in from top management to create and retain its user communities, says Tadepalli.

`TICKLE' your employees

V. Balakrishnan of Polaris says the company's intranet site Empower has been around since mid 2000.

Developed by a team of 20-plus, it is now maintained by a team of three in the Internal Automation department.

Empower TICKLEs employees — Transaction, Information, Collaboration, Knowledge, Learning, Entertainment. It is the gateway portal to all applications.

Unlike other portals, Empower knows the identity and relationships of the associate.

How frequently is content updated? Balakrishnan says "Content changes independently, by several departments, continuously - the front page changes once a week typically.

Company events are flashed on the e-screen daily. Since attendance is linked to looking at the frontpage/flash, no one ever misses the daily flash.

All departments conduct periodic polls that pop up when the attendance is marked, and keep popping up till the poll is answered.

Polls and flash messages are customised location-wise."

What content is viewed frequently?

All transactional information affecting employees, company events, photos of events, bulletin boards, etc. Empower is a way of life in Polaris, like a daily newspaper, he says.

If it were not to function, several critical business transactions would come to a halt since Empower does the dissemination of all MIS information in the company, he says.

"The building of the intranet portal would have cost us 50-60 person years but this has since been capitalised and the portal converted and sold as a product under the brand name `Adrenalin.'

The site has been running for the past two years with an administrator and two programmers for maintenance, supporting employees across a dozen countries.

About 12 medium-sized servers host the application around the world over a good private network, he says."

To `help you, not me'

Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company Ltd's intranet portal was launched by the HR function four years ago and continues to be managed by it, though there is now a sense of co-ownership between all the users and departments.

Prabhu Nambiappan, Vice-President, HR, says the company checked out a few off-the-shelf intranet solutions in the market before zeroing in on this format.

Besides the usual features, such as company information, competitor details, industry happenings and the economy in general, it provides business-related information, for e.g claim/settlement norms (manuals), besides automated administrative chores.

The site, he says, is positioned as a culture-building tool with employee-friendly initiatives.

Nominate yourself for a training programme, for instance, or indulge in some creative writing. Programmes that foster enthusiasm and participation are aplenty, he says.

On time and cost savings, Nambiappan says smooth running of the site "has helped us free at least 15 per cent time to persons from routine chores and searching for data/information."

The cost savings in terms of paperwork and improved productivity has been substantial.

The launch of the site was spread over a 6-9 month period and done module by module.

There was a user-testing period for each module to facilitate feedback.

There's fun, celebration, bonding, and insights into the little things that count.

Employees in remote branches stay tuned in to the company happenings, their colleagues, industry news and customer satisfaction levels.

Nambiappan stresses transparency - forms pending action can be tracked at every stage.

There's an `Ask Antony' column where employees can directly contact Antony Jacob, Managing Director.

The fundamental attitude and underlying approach has been one of `Help you, not me.'

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

mythili@thehindu.co.in

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